


In Which Tamaki Has Flowers in his Lungs

by pygmypuffskein



Category: Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types
Genre: Drabble, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, a bit of a different writing style, hanahaki, host club, no dialouge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-09-06
Packaged: 2019-07-07 13:17:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15909030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pygmypuffskein/pseuds/pygmypuffskein
Summary: Hanahaki AU fic originally posted to my tumblr (heroicintention).Tamaki is suffering from Hanahaki disease. If he told the one he loves, maybe it could be helped-- but his friendship with Kyoya isn't worth the risk.





	In Which Tamaki Has Flowers in his Lungs

**Author's Note:**

> There is character death in this, as well as details of Hanahaki disease (an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love). Please do not read if that bothers you.

He was sure it had started the moment he first reached Ouran Academy. Tamaki had met Kyoya that first day and it had planted the seed. Sadly, more literally than he would ever want. Tamaki had never had a crush before, not really. In France, he had been determined to stay close to his mother, and that meant cutting off from the outside world. Occasionally he would make a friend in class, but that was where the friendship remained. With Kyoya, though, it was… different. He was comfortable opening up. Sharing. And Kyoya—to his face—didn’t seem bothered. Tamaki could see through him. Could see what he could be, and it intrigued him. Even then he had known, though, that it would be better to keep at arm’s length.

It was a slow growth. And one that was easy to hide. At first. Tamaki could keep to himself, help the ladies and keep them entertained. And he could be friends with Kyoya… Best friends. That was good enough to him. He didn’t want to overstep, even when his chest started to feel heavy. He just worked. Worked to be a better friend, because  _maybe_ if he won love in that way it would be enough to stop the growth, to sate the flowers, to kill the seed.

Haruhi came. He hoped that maybe he could find love with her. If he could break his own unrequited love, if he loved someone else, maybe… Maybe it would end. And he did love Haruhi, it was just  _different_. He wanted to protect her. He wanted to take care of her. Maybe, if he had tried harder, if he had let go of the idea of even a possibility, then maybe he could have loved her in the full way he wanted to. But he didn’t. Of course, he didn’t.

_Stupid_. His grandmother called him  _stupid_ and he started to agree with her when he started retching first thing in the morning, when lying on his back helped the petals fall directly into his airway. He practically fell out of bed choking. The maids started expecting the petals. And soon they came with carpet cleaner for when blood stained the tan. Yes, he was stupid. If he just told Kyoya, there was a chance he would find his love returned. They could be happy. They could grow together, the flowers wouldn’t weight his lungs with roots tightening around his heart, trying to pierce through down into his stomach. Or, if he said no, Tamaki could at least have a quicker death.

There was a procedure. He could get it all removed. But that would remove any capability to love. And Tamaki knew he couldn’t live like that.

And, in a way, he didn’t want to put that pressure on his friend.

The club started to notice. Everyone started to notice.

Senior year and Tamaki could hardly go through the school day without excusing himself multiple times. Even during club, he had to leave. The girls all found it very romantic. To most of them, he was something like a prop. An actor. He knew the whispers that said it was all an act. It was easier not to dispute it, even as vines painfully prodded beneath his skin. It could be hidden. Everyday a new group of girls came up, confessing love in hopes that he would be magically cured, but it wasn’t so easy as that. More whispers that it was all fake.

The club was growing concerned. More so when Tamaki started collapsing when he couldn’t breath well enough. The stems were growing, clogging his air way, and in the spring when the girls could see the rose petals in the back of his throat, no one said he was lying. Instead the whispers spread that he was dying.

His father and grandmother insisted he get the removal when word got to them. They had thought it was dramatics for his precious club, but now their doubts had turned into worry. Fear when he refused. His grandmother came and yelled at him, and Tamaki apologized, but he wouldn’t live without feeling. His father tried to reason with him. Haruhi and the twins, Honey and Mori, they all told him just to tell the person he loved, and he could survive. But that would be too much pressure at this point. There would be only one choice with the signs so visible. His veins looked green.

Kyoya even tried. Probably the bluntest of them, reminding him he had responsibilities and friends who didn’t want him to die. Didn’t want to watch him die. Had watched him  _dying_ all these years, at first without even knowing they were. He didn’t know why Tamaki had put forth all the effort to run the club when he should be taking care of his health, which was declining. Steeply. But Tamaki didn’t agree. But that was because all these years he had only been able to get closer to his best friend. He was able to see how cruel it would be to trap him. Or perhaps he was just scared to try. Dying not knowing seemed better than dying with the knowledge he was unwanted or living with the guilt of putting Kyoya into an unmanageable position.

So, he didn’t. He smiled at the man who would always remain just a friend. He told him not to worry so much.

The next week came and went, but Tamaki never returned to Ouran. Kyoya and Haruhi both went to see him, where his grandmother and father sat in the room. Waiting. He was barely breathing, flowers unclipped in his mouth, a thorn of a rose scratching his lower lip. Dread set in. Had it been so painful the whole time? Haruhi led Kyoya back out. Reminded him that ‘this is what he wants… I don’t know why, but this is what he wants.’

Tamaki died with new life growing out of him, covering his bed in green. It was a difficult decision in how to bury him as the roses continued to grow. But on the edge of town, there was a small cemetery full of flowers, for those who died of the disease of love unrequited. Most of the Academy came for the burial. And the next month they came again; it seemed that death of the beloved didn’t break the sickness, even if it came later, even if the flowers had only just started to form buds.

In the cemetery, they were buried close. As friends. Though as the red roses mingled with the purple, those remaining had to wonder if they were growing for each other, never spoken. Haruhi and the rest know. They knew with how quickly they saw Kyoya spiral after Tamaki passed, how he became after the burial, how he went to see the quickly growing flowers.

In the grass now, Haruhi trims the flowers carefully, with the help of Hikaru and Kaoru. They remove dead leaves, dead buds. It isn’t necessary, really; Hanahaki flowers stay as a reminder of sorts. Or perhaps as a replacement of life. In the back of her mind, Haruhi wonders if Tamaki and Kyoya somehow found each other in whatever afterlife there is. She wonders if they’re together, happy.


End file.
